A Motley (Collection of British Authors Volume 4203)

Leipzig: Bernard Tauchnitz, 1910. Copyright Edition. Quarter-bound Calf. VG Very Good/No Dust Jacket. Sextodecimo,[16mo] (16.25cm/6.5inches),gilt-embossed quarter-bound conifer-green calf-backed boards, pp. 271 Please feel free to inquire as to particulars and/or additional photographs. ... Being a collection of Galsworthy's stories, studies and impressions written between 1899-1910. 'A Portrait' and 'The Japanese Quince' appear for the first time. ... Christian Bernhard Tauchnitz was just 20 years old in 1837 when he founded in Leipzig the publishing firm that bore his name. He had earlier been apprenticed to his uncle Karl Tauchnitz, an eminent printer-publisher who had introduced stereotyping to Germany. He appears to have decided early to specialise in publishing editions in foreign languages, and particularly English. The first volume in the ‘Tauchnitz Collection of British Authors’ appeared in 1842 and over the next 100 years the series went on to comprise some 5370 volumes. Although it included the works of many American, as well as British authors, from as early as volume 15 in the series, it was not until 1914 that the name of the series was extended to include British and American Authors. When the series was first launched there was no recognised international copyright convention and it was common for English language novels to be published in Europe without any recognition of copyright or any payment to the author. The earliest volumes in the Tauchnitz series were reprints of books already widely available in Germany and had no authorisation from the authors. However Tauchnitz quickly realised that obtaining explicit authorisation from authors in return for payment, might not only be more honest, but also more profitable, giving him early access to the latest novels available in English.In the summer of 1843 Tauchnitz put a proposal to a small number of authors to pay them a fee in return for authorisation to publish their works and his proposal was accepted initially by three authors in July 1843 – G.P.R. James, Bulwer Lytton and Lady Blessington. Five others – Dickens, Disraeli, Ainsworth, Samuel Warren and Captain Marryat accepted shortly after and works by all these authors and a small number of others appeared in the Tauchnitz series as editions ‘sanctioned by the author’ over the next three years. This pioneering move helped to drive forward moves towards international copyright protection and in 1846 an Anglo-German treaty established an international copyright. From that point on Tauchnitz editions were published under international copyright, giving them some protection against piracy by other publishers. Under the terms of the copyright they could be sold throughout Continental Europe and elsewhere, but could not be imported into the British Empire, or in the case of American authors, into the USA.